Song Premiere: Rod Picott’s “Mama’s Boy” from “Tell the Truth and Shame the Devil”

Americana Highways brings you this premiere of Rod Picott’s “Mama’s Boy” from his forthcoming release Tell The Truth & Shame The Devil, which will be available July 19th via Welding Rod Records. Tell the Truth & Shame the Devil was recorded and engineered by Rod Picott, mixed by Neison Hubbard and mastered by Alex McCollough at True East Mastering. “Mama’s Boy” was co-written by Rod Picott and Said Cleaves, and the recording is Rod Picott on vocals, guitar, and harmonica.

Strict gender distinctions and roles cut both ways, and it’s worthwhile to focus on the effect a certain sense of masculinity has on boys growing up. This song is thought provoking on many levels, including sparking a consideration of why the term “mama’s boy” would be considered an insult, a derision of a close relationship between a son and his mother. The male figures strap boxing gloves onto the lyrical protagonist (who is an artistic, sensitive boy) to toughen him up: “we’re gonna turn that boy into a man.” All the while Picott’s low cracking, gritty vocals send shivers down your spine over fingerpicked acoustic guitar. Tell the Truth and Shame the Devil is captivating from the thoughtful title all the way through to the last song’s last note, and in the style of the best Americana troubadours, this album is guaranteed to be one of the year’s best.

I come from a long line of fighters. Boxers. It was a patch in the quilt of our lives. My father was very proud that his uncle had been a professional heavyweight fighter. He and his younger brother (who had been a professional middleweight) would come together whenever there was a big fight. Ali, Fraser, Foreman- we watched all of the big fights. Several times during my childhood there was a makeshift ring of clothesline erected and my cousins and I were dropped in to throw big looping roundhouse punches at each other until someone went down. This behavior would would most likely put you behind bars today but it was a different era of course. It wasn’t out of cruelty any more than butchering a farm animal for food was cruel. Over the years the memory has stayed with me as a metaphor and a question. What is masculinity? What does it mean to be a man? Back then it was a very narrow path that defined the answer. The song is not autobiographical strictly speaking but meant to ask those questions through a narrative. — Rod Picott